Ripple's Crossroads: CoreNest Capital Demands XRP Utility Rethink Post-SWIFT Blockchain Move

The recent announcement by Swift at Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt, revealing its strategic decision to integrate a blockchain-based, shared ledger into its core infrastructure, has catalysed a profound re-evaluation of Ripple’s strategic direction and the fundamental utility of the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Swift presented this development as a significant stride towards achieving instant, perpetually available cross-border settlements on a global scale, framing its new ledger as an evolutionary extension of two years of dedicated tokenization trials rather than a radical overhaul of its existing system.

“Make XRP Great Again”: A Call for Strategic Repositioning

In light of Swift's pivotal move, Bob Ras, General Partner at CoreNest Capital, issued a public exhortation for Ripple to critically reassess its current roadmap. Ras articulated his concerns on social media platform X, stating, "So Ripple has been trying to replace SWIFT for years. SWIFT just added blockchain instead. The plot twist writes itself. What’s the next move? Maybe it’s the right time to pivot?" This initial query soon evolved into a more incisive critique in a subsequent post. Ras further elaborated on his apprehension, asserting that "Ripple has been all over the map: cross-border payments, then NFTs, then tokenization, now stablecoins. The core issue is XRPL itself. Without smart contracts it’s just not a friendly chain for developers, which is why you don’t see much serious building happening on it. Even the attempts to add smart contracts, like the grant to Axelar, haven’t really materialized."

Anticipating potential dissent from the ardent XRP community, Ras underscored his perspective: "Hate me or love me, the reality is, right now XRP doesn’t offer real utility beyond simple value transfers from one wallet to another. Any tokens can do that. For a project that once aimed to flip SWIFT, that’s not enough. Ripple needs a pivot toward true utility if it wants to stay relevant. MAKE XRP GREAT AGAIN!" These remarks emerged concurrently with Chainlink's public commendation of Swift, highlighting their multi-year collaborative efforts, including successful interoperability experiments in 2023 utilizing Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and Swift’s established messaging rails. Chainlink hailed the Sibos announcement as a "landmark moment," reaffirming the crucial role of oracles and standardized messaging in facilitating seamless connectivity between banks and both public and private blockchain networks without necessitating a complete dismantling of existing infrastructure.

XRP Versus Chainlink and the Shifting SWIFT Landscape

This juxtaposition invariably ignited a contentious debate concerning valuation models and token economics. Dave Weisberger, co-founder and former chairman of CoinRoutes, posed a provocative question on X: "Can someone from the XRP army explain how XRP is more than TEN times LINK’s value, when LINK has a REAL partnership with SWIFT, AND a clear path to revenue to be shared with token holders…" Weisberger, who subsequently clarified his holdings in both assets, nonetheless characterized certain price expectations as "delusional."

Responses from the community varied widely, encompassing arguments based on market capitalization arithmetic and assertions regarding on-chain transaction volume. Critics, however, swiftly countered that a high transactional throughput alone does not inherently translate into a direct accrual of value to the underlying token. This ongoing exchange encapsulates a fundamental schism within the digital asset space: does the increasing institutional adoption of bank-friendly financial rails and robust oracle networks ultimately favor neutral middleware solutions like Chainlink more profoundly than Layer 1 tokens such as XRP, whose ambitious payment network aspirations increasingly intersect with Swift’s evolving technological trajectory?

Navigating XRPL’s Technical Evolution and Ripple’s Strategic Diversification

Ras’s principal technical assertion—that the XRP Ledger’s base layer is inherently unconducive to developer engagement due to its purported absence of general-purpose smart contracts—possesses historical grounding. However, in late 2025, this claim warrants a more nuanced perspective. Historically, Ripple has consistently prioritized the implementation of deterministic, built-in primitives specifically designed for payments, a native Decentralized Exchange (DEX), and, more recently, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through XLS-20 standards, over the development of a Turing-complete Virtual Machine (VM).

Nevertheless, the XRP Ledger ecosystem has witnessed significant advancements aimed at addressing these perceived limitations. Community-driven proposals, such as "Hooks," are actively seeking to introduce lightweight, on-ledger programmability directly onto the XRPL. Concurrently, Ripple and its ecosystem partners have successfully deployed an XRPL EVM Sidechain, which officially went live on the mainnet on June 30, 2025. This sidechain provides robust Ethereum-compatible smart contract capabilities, seamlessly connected to the core XRPL via the Axelar bridge. This sidechain, along with the broader Ripple/Axelar interoperability initiatives, directly expands the developer surface area and functionality, even if these capabilities are executed off the primary Layer 1 chain.

From a strategic standpoint, Ripple has demonstrably broadened its focus beyond its initial emphasis on cross-border messaging, now actively expanding into nascent areas such as tokenization and dollar-denominated settlement solutions. Its US dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, was first announced in 2024, accompanied by strategic distribution partnerships across various cryptocurrency exchanges and payment platforms. Furthermore, Ripple has aggressively pursued the development of institutional-grade infrastructure, exemplified by a significant agreement in 2025 to acquire prime broker Hidden Road. These strategic maneuvers collectively indicate a pronounced pivot towards providing essential liquidity and balance-sheet utilities centered around tokenized assets—an evolving sector that Swift's new blockchain-enabled ledger explicitly targets at the messaging layer.

The Future Trajectory of XRP: Complementary or Competitive?

The ultimate implication of these developments for XRP’s investment thesis—whether they represent a complementary enhancement or a direct competitive challenge—will largely hinge on the degree to which value accrues to the XRP Ledger (or its nascent EVM sidechain) versus to the growing number of bank-operated ledgers interconnected through oracle networks and industry-wide messaging standards. The dynamic interplay between these forces will define the future trajectory of XRP in the rapidly evolving landscape of global digital finance. At the time of this publication, XRP was trading at $2.86.